Cf­moto plans a cheap 650 twin too

Kymco won’t have the mar­ket to it­self when it comes to bud­get 650 twins, as Cf­moto are re­vamp­ing their range and ad­ding this Ver­sys-style model to their line-up.

Called the 650MT, the bike takes its chas­sis and 650cc par­al­lel-twin engine from the firm’s ex­ist­ing 650NK, which is also be­ing restyled for 2017 with much more at­trac­tive looks than the cur­rent ver­sion. Aus­trian de­sign­ers Kiska are be­hind the com­pany’s new fam­ily ap­pear­ance.

The 650MT, seen here in leaked patent im­ages, gets a new swingarm and in­verted fork, plus in­creased ride­height. Its engine closely fol­lows the Kawasaki ER-6’S par­al­lel-twin lay­out, right down to shar­ing the same 83mm x 60mm bore and stroke. Un­sur­pris­ingly, its per­for­mance is also sim­i­lar.

For 2017 the firm is also set to launch a range of 41bhp, 400cc ver­sions, with a 68.4mm bore and 54.5mm stroke – mim­ick­ing the Ja­panese do­mes­tic mar­ket’s Er-6-based Ninja 400.

In the UK mar­ket, where Cf­moto ma­chines are mar­keted un­der the Wk­bikes brand, the 650MT could well be an im­por­tant model, un­der­cut­ting its Ja­panese ri­val to be a brand new al­ter­na­tive to a used Ver­sys 650. Although still not of­fi­cially con­firmed, it’s ex­pected to be re­vealed at shows to­wards the end of 2016 and go on sale next year.